


breathe

by tomorrowsrain



Series: OT3 [1]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, so many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 20:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomorrowsrain/pseuds/tomorrowsrain
Summary: Ruben works on putting himself back together. Vanessa and Usnavi help far more than they know.





	breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisstableground](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/gifts).



> So I've jumped on the bandwagon. Really it was inevitable. thisstableground has made me love these three far too much and so I had to contribute.

So look, he’s better. He’s so much better it’s _insane._ But there are still bad days and hard days and fucking _terrible_ ones: where he can barely bring himself to get out of bed, let alone leave his apartment. Where his hands shake and the Ian-That-Lives-In-His-Head presses in ruthless and close—phantom touch and phantom pain on his skin that has him running his fingers over his scars to make sure they’re not bleeding.

Before (and it definitely needs capitalization for how _different_ his life is now. Before. _Before._ ) he would weather it alone. Lock his front door and the pull the covers over his head and run equations through his mind until his lungs remembered how to work right and the tremors subsided. It could take hours, sometimes, and he would end up emerging after the sun had set, telling himself to be a fucking adult and at least eat something.

But Now (and that requires capitalization, too, okay?) there are at least two people who notice his absence and do something about it. The first time they show up at his door—a few weeks after they started calling this an actual relationship (as in he’s _dating_ both of them, holy _shit)—_ he expects to have to tell them to leave him alone. To flinch away from their touch and explain in stuttering broken words that he _can’t,_ the Ian-That-Lives-In-His-Head won’t let him. But he forgot that they’ve always kind of been an exception to the rules, and that doesn’t change.

No, instead he leans into it when Usnavi hugs him as soon as he opens the door, burying his face in Usnavi’s neck (and sending a triumphant, if exhausted, mental _fuck you_ to Ian). Vanessa runs gentle fingers through his hair and there is still phantom pain and his fingers are twitching, restless, from the echoes of remembered fear, but it’s _nice._ It’s good. It’s what he needed.

“Can we come in?” Usnavi asks, like they’re not always going to be welcome here. For as long as they’ll have him.

Still, words and him aren’t really getting along at the moment, so he settles for nodding. They all crowd into his small front room and Vanessa takes over hugging duties, asking, “what do you need?”

 _You_ is the only thing that comes to mind, but he understands that isn’t exactly helpful. More than that would require a voice which isn’t currently working, though—like the Ian-That-Lives-In-His-Head has somehow managed to wrap ghostly fingers around his throat.

“Okay,” Usnavi says, sounding decisive (thank God), “how about we just go back to bed?”

Ruben is dimly aware that it’s noon on a Tuesday, but bed sounds like a _great_ idea. At his nod, they shuffle down the hall to the bedroom. It’s awkward, kind of, with them still practically hugging him, but it seems like none of them want to let go.

He’s certainly not going to say anything.

They put him in the middle and press in on either side. It’s a tight fit, but they make it work—Usnavi’s arm around his waist and Vanessa’s lips against his temple.

“We’ve got you,” Vanessa says, breath warm on his skin. “You’re safe.”

His eyes sting at that, at Usnavi shifting closer still and pressing a kiss to his clothed shoulder. He keeps waiting, deep down in a place he doesn’t let them see, for them to grow impatient and leave. They already have each other—they’re fucking _great_ together—so he still doesn’t quite understand why they want him with all his baggage and bad days and broken edges.

They’re still here, though. They keep proving him wrong. He isn’t used to it.

Later, when the sky outside is the gold of late evening, Usnavi untangles himself from their little pile, murmuring about needing to check on Sonny, but he’ll be right back, and kisses Ruben’s cheek.

“You hungry?” Vanessa asks in the wake of the closing door and he finds that he is.

Vanessa texts Usnavi to bring food back (mostly because Ruben has almost nothing in his fridge or cupboards, but hey, he spends ninety percent of his time at Usnavi’s these days so whatever) and coaxes him from the bed to the couch.

He feels bad that she’s wasted her whole day here with him, but he knows enough not to apologize. She’ll just get that frustrated/heartbroken look on her face and insist that it’s _“fine,_ Ruben, we actually do _like you_ , you know.”

(He suspects it might be a little more than like now—a different, stronger L word—but he hasn’t had the courage to face that yet. Or bring it up. Just in case he’s wrong. Which he probably is.)

Usnavi comes back with Chinese takeout and they end up in a similar configuration on the couch—Usnavi pressed all along one side and Vanessa’s long legs across both their laps. There are _I Love Lucy_ reruns on his crappy TV and a few hours later, he finally unsticks his voice enough to tell them, “thank you.”

Usnavi kisses him, and then Vanessa. They’re both chaste, gentle, but enough to make him shake in the best way.

(They’re _always_ going to make him shake.)

“Any time, Ruben.”

“Seriously,” Vanessa adds, stern. “ _Call us.”_

Usnavi smiles at him—this tender thing Ruben still has no idea what to do with. “Yeah. We’ll come running. Siempre.”

 

_ _

 

And the crazy thing is that _they do._

He can’t always talk to them, so he just rings one or the other and stays on line until they say they’re coming over. He feels guilty, making them drop everything, but his _fucking terrible_ days really aren’t all that frequent anymore (go him, right?) and he still knows better than to apologize.

(He tried once, after a particularly godawful day where he weathered three successive flashbacks and kind of cried all over Usnavi’s shirt. Vanessa shook her head, eyes suspiciously wet, and said, “shut up. You’re not a burden, we _love you.”_ And then looked very mortified, like she hadn’t meant to admit that. But Usnavi just grinned, bright, and said, “Yep. Like, a _lot_. So it’s _fine,_ Ruben.”

He’d gaped at them, shocked somewhere to his core, and hadn’t said it back.

But really, it’s only a matter of time.)

It isn’t always both of them, but there is still something of a routine. Bed, Chinese takeout, _I Love Lucy,_ and kisses on the couch. It’s like they have some kind of sixth sense, because they always seem to know when he needs quiet and when he doesn’t.

Some days, they lie with him in bed, the covers over their heads, and just hold him. Let him shake through it with arms around his waist and kisses to his face, his neck, his shoulder—like they’re trying to tether him to the present.

Some days, they sit with him on the couch and talk about everything, anything, and nothing. Usnavi spins him stories about the barrio and its residents—Sonny’s antics, Abuela Claudia’s steady presence (“You would’ve loved her. She would’ve loved _you.”),_ winning ninety-six-thousand dollars in the lottery. Vanessa tells him about the early days of her and Usnavi’s relationship (“He almost _left,_ did you know that? Bastard.”) and the power going out and Usnavi spending some of the lottery money on her new apartment (“He made me cry. Bastard.”).

He soaks it up like a sponge, all of their bright history, and he tries to give back as much as he can. He talks about his mother and his sisters, college, the few parts of IMH that aren’t tainted by Jason and Ian. He tries not to reveal how lonely his life was, even before Ian and Jason collectively took a sledgehammer to it, but he thinks they see.

They kiss him a lot, after stories about months spent in a lab with no friends or life outside of it, and it soothes the ache.

(“I wish I could cave his skull in,” Vanessa says one day, when he hasn’t talked for three hours and he’d actually flinched, a little, when she put a hand to his cheek. He wishes she could, too, but it won’t help. He tries to explain that to her, to them both. Ian lives in his head now, haunts him like a ghost, and the only way to get rid of him is to keep trying to put himself back together—one bloody piece at a time.

“It isn’t _fair,”_ Vanessa says, face twisting up.

Usnavi nods in agreement but says, “well, let us help you fight him, at least.”

Ruben laughs at that. Says, “you already do. Do you even _know?”_  

And he thinks, suddenly, that maybe they don’t. Maybe they worry they aren’t enough, just like he does with them.

He’ll tell them otherwise, though. It’s only a matter of time.)

 

_ _

 

He tries to wait for the right moment, to be at least a little romantic, but it sneaks up on him. They’re sitting in Inwood Park and it’s the middle of fucking winter, it’s _snowing,_ but they’ve figured out that the cold actually helps—so divorced from the muggy, cloying heat of a warehouse in Jamaica—and walks have become a thing.

(In the winter, at least. They spent the last few months of summer putting fans literally _all over_ his apartment and Usnavi’s and sitting in front of them for hours. Until the point all three of them were wearing sweaters in _July,_ but Usnavi had just said, optimistic as ever, “don’t worry, this is great. Should have thought about this years ago. It gets too damn hot here, I hate it.”

His chattering teeth belied some of that, but Ruben’s chest felt tight in the best way all the same and he’d pressed a grateful kiss to Usnavi’s neck that made Usnavi smile, delighted.)

It hasn’t been a good day for any of them. Vanessa’s landlord is giving her shit (to the point where she’s considering moving again) and Usnavi had to pull double shifts at the store because Sonny had to work on his senior project and Ruben woke up this morning to Ian’s voice rattling in his head and Ian’s hands running over his skin and had to call in sick to class after throwing up for two hours.

So yeah. Shitty day all around, but they’re here now. Sprawled on a park bench watching the streetlights come on. Vanessa’s got her head in his lap, legs dangling over the arm of the bench, and Usnavi has a warm arm around his shoulders. He’s running careful, slightly shaky fingers through Vanessa’s hair and they’re all just breathing together, enjoying the stillness.

The words bubble up in his throat, unbidden, pressing insistent against the back of his teeth. And maybe it isn’t the best time (or the right one), but he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to keep them in.

He doesn’t _want_ to.

“I love you,” he says, loud in the quiet. “Both of you. So much.”

Vanessa’s curls a gloved hand around his knee and squeezes hard.

“We know,” she says, voice a little choked.

“We hoped,” Usnavi corrects, eyes gleaming and smile tender. “We really, really, really hoped.”

“And we love you, too,” Vanessa adds. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”

“So much,” Usnavi says and kisses him deep, hands cupped against his cheeks.

Not to be outdone (though it has never been a competition, really), Vanessa sits up and does the same, curling her tongue hot and wonderful against his own.

(He shakes and shakes and his heart feels too big for his ribcage to contain.)

“And we should all move in together,” Usnavi blurts when Vanessa pulls back, looking nervously at them both. “Can we all move in together?”

Vanessa laughs and shakes her head, fondly exasperated. “Give us a minute, idiota _,”_ she insists, smacking Usnavi lightly on the arm. “We’re having a moment.”

Usnavi shrugs. “I thought this was an extension of the moment.”

“I’d like that,” Ruben says, from somewhere on cloud nine. “A lot.”

“Me too,” Vanessa admits and Usnavi lights up, practically glowing from the inside out. “But _later,”_ Vanessa insists with another smack to his arm. “Ruben just said he loves us. I want to bask.”

“Basking is good,” Usnavi agrees, nodding. Ruben’s cheeks are hot, but he also can’t stop smiling so it feels like an even trade off. “We can bask.”

They resume their earlier positions, though Vanessa keeps a hand curled tight around Ruben’s knee. Ruben leans his head against Usnavi’s and closes his eyes, breathing slow and content. The Ian-That-Lives-In-His-Head is completely silent, for once, and he feels closer to whole than he’s ever been. Maybe even closer than Before.

He has two amazing people who _love him_ (holy shit) and it’s only a matter of time.


End file.
